Summer Warpath Read online

  SUMMER WARPATH

  WAYNE D. OVERHOLSER

  Copyright © 2017 by the estate of Wayne D. Overholser

  Published in 2017 by Blackstone Publishing

  Cover design by Kurt Jones

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Trade ISBN: 978-1-5047-8689-8

  Library ISBN: 978-1-5047-8688-1

  CIP data for this book is available

  from the Library of Congress

  Blackstone Publishing

  31 Mistletoe Rd.

  Ashland, OR 97520

  www.BlackstonePublishing.com

  SUMMER WARPATH

  WAYNE D. OVERHOLSER

  Chapter One

  The day was April 20, 1876, the kind of warm spring day that makes a man feel life is being born again on the prairie. Here and there a hint of green appeared in the grass and the buds of the cottonwoods along the creek were starting to swell. But it was a day, too, when death might be waiting in any ravine.

  Funny how a man senses danger, Walt Staley thought. Sometimes it’s an uneasy prickle between the shoulder blades. Sometimes it’s a faint chill sliding along the spine. Today it’s a coldness deep in my belly.

  He stopped in the bottom of a shallow valley and let his buckskin drink.

  Both the Sioux and the Cheyennes were ugly this spring. The way Staley saw it, they had a right to be, but his sympathy wouldn’t save his hair if a war party crossed his trail. He had ridden most of the night and on into the morning. Now he was dead tired. So was his buckskin, but he couldn’t stop, even though he had finished the last of his grub yesterday morning.

  The question that had been nagging him for several hours was whether he should hide until dark, or try to make it to Fort Laramie, twenty-five or thirty miles away. A third choice was Louie Barrone’s horse ranch. He decided to head for Louie’s.

  Early that morning he had passed the site of an Indian camp. He’d guessed there had been eight or nine braves in the outfit. They had stayed one night and then ridden south, probably yesterday morning. He also guessed it was a war party because he had found part of the carcass of an antelope. If squaws had been along, they would have worked up all the meat; that, of course, was labor a brave could not be bothered with.

  The prairie stretched out for miles on all sides of Staley. It made a long swell in front of him to the top of a ridge, and it sloped down on the other side to a brush-choked draw about like this one. If he got caught out here in the open by a band of Sioux or Cheyennes, he was a dead duck.

  He rode across the shallow stream and started up the slope. Barrone’s ranch was out of his way if he wanted to go on to Fort Laramie after dark, but there was no hurry. It had been a long time since Walt Staley had been in a hurry to go anywhere.

  So he angled east, not pushing the buckskin at all. He’d get to Barrone’s place easily by noon. He studied the brow of the hill ahead of him, then turned in his saddle and glanced behind him. Nothing moved, not even a bird or a jack rabbit. An empty land. The coldness still chilled his belly. Indians were near. They could be watching him right now.

  An hour later he topped the ridge and looked down on Barrone’s ranch, a low log building with a dirt roof, a log barn, and a pole corral. Barrone had lived here for twenty years. During that time the Indians had never been a serious problem to him, probably because he had married a Cheyenne squaw named White Bird when he’d settled down. White Bird had died two years ago, but Barrone still lived here with his boys, Bill and Joe, and his daughter Tally.

  Staley put his horse down the slope. Might be smart to stay the night, he thought. Barrone would know if the Indians were moving in great enough numbers to be feared. Usually they gave him information they wouldn’t give anyone else. Staley might be able to pick up news that General Crook would like to hear.

  Reining up in front of the barn, he saw smoke rising from both the kitchen and the fireplace chimneys, but no other sign of human life. A mangy black dog that had been sleeping in the shade of the barn got up and moved away in a half circle, his ears down, his teeth showing as he expressed in a surly growl his displeasure over Staley’s presence. Half a dozen nondescript hens were scratching industriously in the manure pile on the other side of the corral. They ignored his arrival and continued to scratch.

  Staley dismounted, wondering if Barrone and the boys had left for the day. He hoped so. He hadn’t seen Tally since fall, and even then he hadn’t had much of a chance to talk to her. Barrone guarded her closely and his sons would skin any man alive who laid a hand on her.

  Several times during the previous summer and fall Staley had stopped here for a meal and had camped in the willows below the house. Tally liked him well enough to slip out during the night and visit him.

  In front of her father and brothers she was a demure and innocent girl who kept her real feelings hidden behind an Indian-like mask. She hated her life and she had let Staley know that she would go away with him any time he would take her. He was tempted, but he didn’t like the prospect of having Louie Barrone and the boys on his trail for the rest of his life.

  Staley was still standing beside his buckskin, his gaze on the house, when the boys appeared in the barn doorway. They moved toward him in their graceful, catlike way. Bill was nineteen, Joe eighteen, and they were exactly the same size and looked enough alike to be twins. They had the high cheek bones, dark eyes, and black hair of their mother, and the light skin of their father.

  Neither spoke. They came directly at him, scowling, right hands resting on the butts of their guns.

  When they reached him, Bill said: “Pap’s in the house. He’ll ask you to dinner when he sees you, so put your horse away.”

  “Don’t say nothing to Tally,” Joe said.

  “If you do, I’ll cut your god-damned heart out,” Bill said.

  “And I’ll eat it,” Joe said.

  They went on to the house, neither looking back. Staley watched them until they disappeared into the kitchen. Half-breeds lived in a world of their own. Because they were not accepted by either whites or Indians, they were fiercely loyal to each other. Staley had seen this loyalty demonstrated many times, and had supposed that the Barrone boys’ protective attitude toward Tally stemmed from it. Now he sensed something else, but he wasn’t sure what it was.

  He stripped gear from his buckskin and turned him into the corral, then started toward the house. Louie Barrone came striding out of the kitchen, bellowing: “Where the hot and living hell did you drop from, Walt?”

  He was a giant of a man, this Louie Barrone. He went back to the days of Ashley and Broken Hand Fitzpatrick and Jedediah Smith and Bill Sublette and Jim Bridger and the rest of the mountain men who had made history in the 1820s and 1830s.

  As far as Staley knew, the old man was the only one who survived. He had a magnificent white beard and mustache, and his hair, equally white, fell to his shoulders. Some men, such as Buffalo Bill Cody, who wore their hair long struck Staley as being frauds, but not Louie Barrone.

  Staley shook hands, grinning a little. “You look like you wintered in pretty good shape, Louie.”

  “I did, I did,” Barrone said. “We ain’t seen hide nor hair of you for six, seven months. Where’d you winter?”

  “On the Yellowstone with the Crows,” Staley said.

  “The Crows!” Barrone snorted his disgust. “A bunch o’ chicken-livered, stealin’ female Injuns. That’s what they are. Couldn’t you do no better’n that?”

  “They ain’t that
bad, Louie,” Staley said. “I get along pretty well with ’em. Besides, I didn’t know any Cheyennes or Sioux who’d welcome me.”

  “Well, now that is the truth. They’ve turned mean and that’s a fact.” Barrone threw a hand out in a sweeping gesture toward the prairie. “They’re thicker’n fleas all over this country. Half a dozen bands have ridden past here in the last week. Always before they’d stop and palaver, but this spring they’re all painted up for war and they ride right on by.”

  “It saves feeding ’em,” Staley said.

  “I’d rather feed ’em than have ’em steal from me. We usually have a buffalo hump or a hunk of antelope to give ’em. Fact is, White Bird always liked to jaw with ’em when they stopped. The boys still do.” The old man shook his head, his beard flying in the breeze. “I dunno, Walt. These are bad days. In the twenty years I’ve lived here, I don’t figger I’ve lost ten head of horses to the Injuns. White outlaws have robbed me plenty of times, but not Injuns.”

  It wasn’t Louis Barrone’s way to worry, Staley thought. He was not a man to work hard. He’d never had to. He’d lived off the country, and if and when he needed money, he’d round up some of his horses and drive them to Fort Fetterman or Fort Laramie and once in a while as far south as Fort D. A. Russell. But now something more than robbery by the Indians was bothering him.

  “You may have bad trouble, all right,” Staley said. “The Sioux and Cheyennes are going to need horses if they fight as big a war as I think they’re going to.”

  “Sure they will,” Barrone said. “This Black Hills business has made ’em ornery. Like kicking a beehive. It’s damned funny how the government makes a treaty with the Injuns who are s’posed to keep it, but the white men can break it any time they want to.” He waggled a finger at Staley. “The government wants a war. You can be dead sure of that. Only way to get the Black Hills. Uncle Sam’s got to whip the Sioux and make ’em sign another treaty. That’s the ticket.”

  Staley nodded. The discovery of gold in the Black Hills was going to get a lot of folks killed.

  Barrone slapped him on the back. “Well, come on in. I told Tally to heave another antelope steak into the pot. It’s probably done afore this, and here we are, standing out here jawing.”

  Staley followed the old man into the kitchen.

  Chapter Two

  Tally was frying meat at the stove. She did not speak or look around or indicate in any way that she knew Staley was there. He glanced at her brothers. They were sitting at the table, leaning forward, tense, their hands hidden below table level.

  Suddenly it struck Staley that the boys were holding their revolvers on their laps. If he even spoke to Tally, it would be enough to provoke the boys into shooting him. All they needed was an excuse.

  Something was wrong in the Barrone family, something desperately wrong that was barely hidden beneath the surface. Staley hung his hat on a peg near the door. Whatever happened, he would lean over backward to avoid a fight.

  “Come on and sit,” Louie Barrone boomed. “I reckon you’re hungry.”

  “Yeah, my tapeworm has been howling for quite a spell,” Staley admitted as he sat down on a bench across from the boys.

  Tally brought a platter of meat to the table. She returned to the stove and came back with the coffee pot and filled the tin cups. She fetched potatoes, biscuits, and a pitcher of molasses.

  The boys started to eat, picking up slices of meat and tearing off great hunks with their teeth. Blood and grease ran down their chins, but it didn’t bother them or slow them up. Joe stopped long enough to produce a great, rumbling belch, then went on eating.

  Staley was not a fussy man. You didn’t spend a winter with the Crows if you were. Still, the boys’ table manners bothered him. He had never seen them eat this way before.

  He watched them, and his memory stirred. Once he had watched a couple of hungry Indian boys after they downed a buffalo. They had cut the buffalo open, pulled out its liver, dripping warm blood and still quivering with life, and eaten it raw. So that was it. Joe and Bill Barrone were trying to act like Indians.

  Staley ate slowly, hoping the boys would finish and leave the table. He glanced casually at Tally. She had filled out since fall. She had the features of a white woman. The blue-black hair and light copper skin made a fine setting for those slanting blue eyes.

  Tally was tall, almost as tall as her brothers, and she would never look dumpy as so many squaws did in middle life. She was clean, her hair was brushed and pinned at the back of her head, and, in spite of the loose-fitting calico dress, she seemed very much a woman.

  The boys finished eating, but they remained at the table, their faces inscrutable, their eyes fixed on Staley. He pretended that he didn’t notice. He had to figure out a way to see Tally before he went on to Fort Laramie.

  It occurred to him suddenly that Tally would be the kind of wife he wanted. He had not thought about it before because he had always considered her a girl. But now she was more than that.

  Most folks would call him a fool for even thinking of taking a wife. He had no job and no money. He owned nothing except his buckskin, his saddle, his Winchester, and a sack of shells. He was a pilgrim who never stayed with a job for more than a month at a time, and the woman he married would have to be a wanderer, too. But Tally wouldn’t mind. He was sure of it.

  “Coffee.” Barrone nodded at Tally and wiped a sleeve across his mouth. “What are you fixing to do, Walt? If you’re looking for a job, I’ll give you one.”

  “No,” Joe said sharply. “We can do all the riding that’s got to be done.”

  Barrone glared at his son. “The old dog is still running this outfit,” he bellowed. “Not the pups.” He turned to Staley. “How about it, Walt?”

  “I ain’t looking for that kind of a job,” Staley said carefully. “I’ll know what I want to do when I get to the fort. Several things ought to be opening up this time of year.”

  Tally brought the coffee pot, filled the cups again, and took the pot back to the stove. She moved gracefully without making a sound.

  “Yeah, I reckon you ought to find something you want,” Barrone said. “I never figgered you being too particular.”

  “No, not as long as the pay’s good and there’s enough of a risk to make it interesting,” Staley said.

  Barrone slurped his coffee and put his cup down. “Since you was here last fall, a hog ranch has started up between here and the fort. A woman calling herself Madame Fifi brought some girls up from Cheyenne. She’s bigger’n a buffalo cow, but her girls ain’t so bad. She’s got one purty little heifer she calls Christine. Claims the girl’s her niece. Maybe she is. All I know is, none of the men get into bed with her.”

  “And they all try,” Staley said.

  Barrone guffawed. “Sure they do, but you can bet they ain’t getting past Madame Fifi.”

  Tally had returned to her chair. She sat down, her gaze on her empty plate. She had gone to school in Cheyenne, coming back to stay only after her mother died, so she knew how civilized people lived and how they talked in front of their women. Now she was embarrassed because she knew that Staley knew.

  “Anything else between here and the fort?” Staley asked to change the subject.

  “Yeah, there’s an Army hay camp on the north prong of Squaw Creek,” Barrone said. “They must have put up three hundred tons of hay last summer. They haul it to the fort when they need it. I guess they got six, eight men there.”

  The old man rose. “Saddle up, boys. Time we was moving out.” He turned to Staley who was on his feet. “I don’t ride as well as I used to, but I want to see if I got any horses left.”

  “You’re a good cook, Tally,” Staley said. “Thanks for the dinner.”

  “You’re welcome,” Tally said, her gaze still on her plate.

  Both boys remained on the bench, acting as if they hadn’t heard th
eir father’s order. Barrone started toward the back door. Then, realizing the boys hadn’t moved, he wheeled back to face them.

  “Didn’t you hear me?” he roared. “I said saddle up. We’re riding.”

  Both boys stared at him defiantly. Bill said: “No. We ain’t riding as long as this bastard’s in the house with Tally.”

  Barrone hit Bill on the mouth with an open palm. The sound of the slap seemed to fill the room, and it knocked Bill to the floor. Barrone moved fast for a man of his age. He would have hit Joe if the younger boy hadn’t slid off the end of the bench. Joe backed away, right hand on the butt of his gun.

  Barrone said: “Get your hand off that iron before I take it away from you and ram it down your throat. Then get out to the corral and saddle up like I told you.”

  Bill came to his feet, blood trickling down his chin from the corner of his mouth. For a moment the boys stood motionless, facing their father, their dark eyes hot with rage. Then without a word they strode toward the back door.

  Barrone watched them until the door closed, then took a deep breath. “It’s been a long time since I whupped ’em, but I’m going to have to do it again.”

  “I’ll be riding,” Staley said. “No use making ’em any madder at me than they are.”

  “They got no call to get mad at you,” Barrone said. “I dunno what’s got into ’em.”

  For just a moment Staley’s gaze touched Tally’s face while Barrone was still glaring at the back door. She glanced up and whispered: “Wait for me.” He nodded and left the room. Barrone followed him.

  Outside, Barrone said: “I tell you, Walt, these are bad days when your own boys want to turn Injun. I told ’em I’d kill ’em if they done it, but I don’t figger that’s gonna stop ’em.”

  They walked toward the corral. Staley understood how the old man felt, but the day was past when Louie Barrone could handle his sons as he chose. The old man should realize it, and Staley wanted to tell him, but he knew he could not.